Life In Limbo

The Life In Limbo Shop!

July 14, 2014

I’m so excited to share the news that I’ve opened a photography shop online! It’s brand new, and I’m sure I’ll be working out the kinks for a long time to come, but the important thing is that it’s up and running. Opening a shop has been something I’ve been daydreaming about for a while, and so I’m very thrilled to finally be able to share it with you.

So far my Etsy shop, named Life In Limbo, is selling travel photography from my time in Europe. I chose my favourite photos from France and Italy, the most colourful and travel-inspiring ones I could find. You can see all the available photos here. Currently, they’re available as digital downloads for you to print at home. I chose the digital download route because of the logistics of living in another country and needing to print and ship. Happily, printing photos these days is very cheap (I got an 11 x 15 printed today for $3.00 and an 8 x 10 for $1.50) and straightforward (especially if you live in a country where you speak the language, ha!).

I tried to choose photos that I truly thought you would like and that might inspire wanderlust in you or in someone you love. I didn’t choose any that I myself wouldn’t purchase to hang on my own walls, but of course as the photographer I’m biased! I’m so excited and curious to see what you think, and I would love to hear any and all suggestions you have.

Thank you, as always, for your support and for reading. You can find my photography shop right here!

Ps. You can see more of my travel photography in my city guides here and you can download free wallpapers featuring some of my photography here.

Inspiration | July 11

July 11, 2014

While I don’t think I would follow it to a T, I liked how this freelance weekly schedule encouraged setting aside chunks of time to do various activities. It inspired me to want to be more intentional in the various things I want to do, especially as I think about how I want to do more writing and learning.

I always love reading about psychology and body language hacks because most of the time, I find that they work! This article about body language tricks to make people like you taught me some things I didn’t know.

Last week I was a bit homesick, especially since my family is getting ready to move out of my childhood home. I resonated with this post about a family’s dining room table and all the roles its played over the years. It made me think of our big wooden table and all the different activities and meals and experiences we’ve had at it. I get a twinge in my heart just thinking about it (sorry Mom).

Teeki was having a sale this week! When I found out, I got out of bed to try and order some but I didn’t end up getting anything, mostly because they’re sold out of my size in the styles I like. I have my eye on these and these.

Kiva is an awesome organization I’ve begun working with this year. They facilitate microloans to small business owners in countries around the world. Today they’re having a million dollar match day, where every loan you make is matched. If you use this link to create a Kiva profile and lend for match day, I’ll get a $25 loan credit, to make an additional loan – no, I will not get the money myself! It just means more money to the people who need it.

Thanks to my friend Dylan of Millennial Abroad, I’m obsessed with this new song from Chromeo.

Two Instagram accounts I’ve been loving lately: @designlovefest went to Provence and her photos were so wonderful, @morningslikethese posts the dreamiest photos, and I’ve been loving all the recent summer ones.

Some oldies but goodies: this time last year I was in Hvar, Croatia island-hopping on a little boat and petting wild donkeys, bright blue edible roses for a boy.

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Unbelievably, this is my good friend’s (the afore-mentioned Dylan) second-last weekend in Busan. Life moves and changes so quickly, it’s astonishing. When I arrived in Busan, I knew we had 5 months to spend running around together (and run we did), but apparently that time is nearly over. This weekend we’re planning a short daytrip to a beautiful island nearby, and then rounding out the weekend with our favourite routine: a beach day, Quizno’s, a soak in the baths at the spa and lounging on the roof overlooking the beach, and Korean diner for dinner. Happy weekend everyone!

Instagram Tips: How to Add a New Location to the Instagram Database

July 10, 2014

In the comments of my last Instagram Tips post, I got a question about adding an official location to the Instagram database. Typically, when you search for a particular location on Instagram, you have a few options to choose from and if you can’t find the location you’re looking for you can type in the name of the monument or restaurant or tourist destination and use the manually inputted name to act as your location tag.

The problem with this method is that unfortunately, manually inputted locations don’t link up to a beautiful location page where all the other tagged photos from that location live, and of course your photo won’t be added to your photo map, if that’s something you like to use. Ideally, we want the location tag to be active and blue, and to link up to the proper page that shows the location on a map as well as the other tagged photos from that place, as shown in the photo above.

The commenter was wondering about what would happen if they opened up a new business and wanted to make their address an official Instagram location to promote an active social media presence for their brand. Other uses for this fix would be to add your favourite local restaurant that isn’t very active online, or any other location that simply hasn’t made it into the Instagram world yet. It’s happened to me before that I couldn’t find the location I was at in Instagram, but I’ve always just shrugged and either chosen a more general location tag or just typed it in manually.

I have another commenter to thank for pointing me towards the solution to this issue! He linked to this article from The Beginner’s Lens which offers a clear and simple fix: add your desired location to the Foursquare location database.

The article recommends using the Foursquare app to do this.

1. Download the app

2. Create an account

3. Click the “Check In” button (if you just search for the location using the search bar, the app will not give you the option of “Add this place”).

4. Search for the location you want to add (even though it doesn’t yet exist)

5. Scroll down to the bottom of the search results (if there are any) and click the “Add this place” option

6. Once you’ve successfully added the location, it should appear as a choice in your Instagram location search results as well, as shown below:

That fix works great, but it requires you to be at the physical location you want to add so that the location is placed on the map at the right coordinates. If you need to add your location after the fact, as I described in this Instagram tips article, you can do so by using the “Add a place” feature on the Foursquare website. You’ll be able to place a pin on the map so that the location is accurate, and add as many details as you want to the location.

As always, I’m hoping that this little tip will be helpful to some of you. I realize that these aren’t common (or serious) problems, but I think it’s helpful to share all the tips I come across, since Instagram is becoming more popular and is starting to be more widely used as a tool for businesses to promote themselves and connect with their customers.

Once again, you can find the original article, which does an excellent job of explaining this solution, right here. You can see the rest of my Instagram tips articles here. And you can follow me on Instagram @lifeinlimboblog.

Summer 2014

July 9, 2014

It’s hard to explain how happy I am that I decided to do this video project again (the last time was in 2012) for my year in Korea. It makes me happy at almost every stage of the process: while filming funny snippets of life and my friends, while listening to music and auditioning it in my head, while editing together the videos and laughing all over again at some of the moments I captured, and of course, while beaming as I watch the finished product. It makes me so happy to know that I’m documenting my life in a way that I find beautiful and funny, and I know that I’ll be so excited to look back on these videos and remember what life looked and felt like in 2014, in Korea.

It’s starting to feel more okay knowing that I won’t be able to capture everything, and that my video is sometimes shaky. I’m doing this project for myself, and for my friends, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s perfectly imperfect! One of my favourite quotes is “I want to feel my life while I’m in it”, and making these videos, every step of the way, reminds me to pay attention and appreciate all the beauty and fun and humour I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by.

So here’s part one of summertime in Korea (May to early July), just in case you’re curious as to what my life looks like here. I had too much footage already to make just one summer video, so there will be another (yay!), probably in a few months’ time. I’m roughly dividing these by season because it’s a less stressful, more fun way for me to produce them (as opposed to every month). In the last few months we spent a lot of time outside, on rooftops and on the beach, on beautiful islands and on boats and on coastal trails. We found a trampoline, we did a lot of tumbling on the sand, we explored temples, we went to a music festival, and we climbed a dormant volcano. Even though some of the moments might have not been perfect or ideal at the time, looking back on this video I only feel blessed and grateful.